doi:10.3850/978-981-08-7920-4_S1-CP19-cd

ABSTRACT

The need for earlier completion of construction projects has led to various schedule compression techniques. An effective and well known technique is to overlap the project activities or phases that normally would be performed in sequence. Overlapping, also called fast tracking, is a risky process because it increases execution uncertainties and can result in more changes and rework, and extra costs. In order to reduce the risks, a tradeoff between benefits and losses of activity overlapping is required. Such a tradeoff is a type of time-cost tradeoff. Various time-cost tradeoffs have been extensively studied in the project management and construction management literature; however, limited research exists to address the activity overlapping time-cost tradeoff. This paper presents a model that utilizes genetic algorithms to optimize the overlapping between activities of construction projects. So far no research has used genetic algorithms to optimize activity overlapping. In this paper, the theoreticalmechanismof overlapping is introduced and the details of the proposed model are described. Furthermore, the application of the model on a simple project network consisting of seven activities and nine dependencies is shown and the outcomes presented. The results of this research can pave the way for further development of a computerized tool capable of determining the optimum overlapping degree between project activities in all industrial projects.

Keywords: Fast-tracking, Overlapping, Time-cost tradeoff, Rework, Project risks.

© 2011 Research Publishing Services. All rights reserved.